Not so much a general sports blog as an irregularly updated desperate plea for help.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Garbage Minutes: basketball fills the void before this weekend

The question posed - which was the better fight? Was it Matt Barnes bodycheck on Rafer Alston that lead to a melee involving Steve Nash, Yao Ming, Tracy McGrady and the Big Aristotle himself laying down the law? Or a recent scrap in Russia with cheapshot haymakers reigning down?

So Deadspin has covered both of these brawls already, but what I find interesting is that they ejected 16 players from the game and finished things up 3-on-3 in Russia, even though the scrap really was relatively minor save one cheapshot, and only a couple people were heavily involved (although somehow the one most guilty, former Arizona Wildcat Joseph Blair, apparently remained in the game after a huge sucker punch!).

It's interesting, the NBA still appears rather paranoid about any fracas taking place but as fan as I can tell that means I can only buy up to a medium size beer at the ACC (large is available only for Leafs games). Limiting the size of beers really going to stop any trouble in the future? Maybe it's time to adopt a far more strict approach by the NBA? Two were ejected from the Suns-Rockets skirmish that involved a larger number of actively jostling players than that in Russia, and yet the suspension friendly Association hasn't even sent down any fines as of this moment in time for those involved! (but criticizing officials warrants a $25,000 fine nice and quick, which one is more "ridiculous"?).

Is this a case of not wanting to come down hard on a big number of its superstars (T-Mac, Shaq, Yao and Nash were all guilty parties), or has the NBA actually lightened up on their fighting suspensions? My guess is the former, but anyways both scraps are posted below: